Part the Third: I Cross the Atlantic Like an Enormous Pussy

I hate to fly. I don’t let that keep me from traveling, but I really hate turbulence. I don’t believe all the people who tell me condescendingly that it is just like bumps in the road. Bumps in the effing road do not involve drops of HUNDREDS OF FEET in THIN AIR, people. Delude your placid selves all you wish; we are in a pressurized metal tube hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles an hour, and when I’m getting tossed around like Jiffy Pop, I’M JOLLY WELL GOING TO BE NERVOUS.

Right?

I used to deal with my fear of flying by getting loaded and carrying my bear, Gerard Manley Bear (SHUT UP I LOVED HOPKINS IN THE '80s), with me. Once I was boarding a plane and a pilot called out cheerfully, “Oh, a Scare Bear!” Yeah, just fly the plane, smartass. But after 9/11 I found that whenever I traveled, I seemed to be the one “randomly” singled out to be frisked. And then when I flew to Pittsburgh with Michael last year I was too embarrassed to bring the bear, and you know what? Didn’t get frisked. I AM A VICTIM OF FURRY PROFILING. Seriously. Drunken white woman clutching lavender bear = terrorist? OK, whatever. So I’ve developed another technique. I sing to myself. Quietly, OK? It’s rare that anyone around me, even the person next to me, can hear it. It regulates my breathing and focuses my panicky brain and muscles on something else. The only thing that works, though, is the score of My Fair Lady. (London cast, 1959) I sing all the vocal parts and all the orchestral parts that fill the spaces. I sing it from the first notes of the Overture through the instrumental reprise of “I Could Have Danced All Night” at the end. Then I start again with the overture. Of course, if it’s not bumpy, I stop, but I pick up where I left off if it gets choppy again.

In the lounge at JFK I had a very good sign: Lea Delaria playing Ms. PacMan. And she got on my flight. I call that a Lucky Celebrity: The plane can’t go down; Lea Delaria’s on it! (And don’t talk to me about that poor Yankee pitcher. (A) He was flying his own stupid prop plane, the kind I would NEVER get on, and (B) the only celebrities that count are those who’ve been mentioned in the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday Times.) Plus, as we boarded the pilot announced that he expected a smooth flight all the way. I didn’t even order a cocktail when the beverage cart came by.

Under Actors’ Equity rules I should be paid for a week’s work, because on the way to London I sang My Fair Lady in its entirety six times. It was a very bumpy flight, and what pissed me off the most was that I was totally LULLED by the boarding announcement. Do you just make this shit up, Captain Liar L. McLiarson? At least the flight attendants were friendly. One of them even stopped to chat with me when she saw how white-knuckled I was. And she assured me that turbulence is just like bumps in the road.

Anyway, we finally landed, shaken and stirred, and on the way off the plane I had to brush right by Lea Delaria, and I thanked her for being my Lucky Celebrity and explained the concept to her, which cracked her up. And now whenever I see her again I can be all, “Hi, Lea! We were on that flight to London together, remember?" And she'll be all, "Yeah! Wasn’t that pilot a total fucking Liar?!” And we'll laugh and laugh and laugh.